Check out our incredibly talented line up of amazing Honor Choir conductors for the Providence 2024 Eastern Region Conference!
Liana Salinas is a music educator and entrepreneur based in Miami, Florida. Ms. Salinas is passionate about leading people–especially young people–to find their purposes and use their voices confidently! She believes in the power of music to inspire change and in the practice of choral singing to unite.
Ms. Salinas proudly serves as the Artistic Director for the Miami Children’s Chorus, an organization near and dear to her heart. She has been a part of the MCC family for 24 years. She began her journey with the chorus at eight years old and simply never left. She served as the organization’s Assistant Music Director from 2013, and became one of the organization’s leaders in 2019. Her vision is to modernize the choral experience by infusing it with contemporary music styles and skills from jazz to song-writing.
Liana is also the CEO & Founder of My Music Music, a company that matches students with teachers for private lessons, group classes, masterclasses, and live music events in Miami, New York, and online all over the world. Through My Music Match, Liana seeks to provide innovative, accessible, and customized musical experiences inspired by our ever evolving world.
Dr. Felicia Barber is the Associate Professor, Adjunct, of Choral Conducting at Yale University and conductor of the Camerata. In addition to teaching graduate-level choral conductors and aspiring undergraduate conductors, Dr. Barber is developing a new initiative designed to prepare Yale students to work with young musicians on choral music in school and church settings.
Previous to her appointment at Yale, Dr. Barber served as Associate Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at Westfield State University in Westfield, MA, where she conducted the University Chorus, Chamber Chorale, and Gospel Choir; as well as taught courses in conducting and choral methods for nine years. In addition to her position at Westfield, Dr. Barber also served as Choral Lecturer for the summer master’s program at Gordon College for five years. There she taught courses in Choral Conducting and Choral Music Education for the MME degree.
Dr. Barber, whose research interests include effective teaching strategies, fostering classroom diversity and incorporating equity and justice initiatives in choral curricula, and the linguistic performance practice of African American spirituals, has contributed to such periodicals as the American Choral Directors Association’s Choral Journal and is the author of A New Perspective for the Use of Dialect in African American Spirituals: History, Context, and Linguistics (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021).
An active member of American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), she has presented her research at state, divisional, and national conferences. Dr. Barber has also served the organization on the National Diversity Committee, the Eastern Division 2020 Conference committee, and is the current President of the Massachusetts ACDA board. In addition, she is regularly engaged as a guest conductor for youth and community festivals around the country; including several All-State ensembles including Vermont, Oklahoma, California, as well as upcoming festivals in Louisiana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island.
Dr. Barber earned a BM in Vocal Performance from Oral Roberts University, in Tulsa, OK, a MM in Choral Music Education from Mansfield University, in Mansfield, PA, and a Ph.D. in Music Education and Choral Conducting from The Florida State University.
Sophia Papoulis is a conductor and creative director for the Foundation for Small Voices, an organization dedicated, through music, to crossing cultural, generational, and ideological boundaries to raise awareness and funds for national and international music and mentoring programs for children. An adjudicator, lecturer, and clinician, she gives choral, collegiate, and teacher-education workshops and guest-conducts regional and all-state choruses nationally and internationally.
Sophia has served as a conductor for the award-winning Young People’s Chorus of New York City, conducting not only for its core after-school program, but also within many New York City public schools across the boroughs. She has conducted at a number of notable venues throughout New York City, including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater, the 92nd Street Y, Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Center, and Symphony Space. She has prepared choruses for national radio and television appearances, recording sessions, collaborative performances with such ensembles as the Kronos Quartet and the Stephen Petronio Company, and for performances not only in New York City, but also in major venues throughout North America, Asia, Europe, and South America. She has conducted professional, university, youth, and community choirs, and maintains an active voice studio.
Sophia is also active as a studio and live-event producer. She is a magna cum laude graduate of the Ithaca College School of Music where she is a member of the Choral Music Experience artistic faculty.
A. Jan Taylor, educator, pianist, singer, and choral conductor is a native of Houston, Texas. Dr. Taylor received the Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Houston, the Master of Arts degree from Prairie View A&M University, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in conducting from the University of Houston. She served as Associate Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at Prairie View A&M University from 1996 until her retirement in 2022.
As an educator, Dr. Taylor has taught general music, piano, and trained choirs in elementary, middle, and high schools in the Houston Independent School District. She has served as adjudicator and choral clinician for numerous choral competitions, festivals, and regional choirs throughout the United States. Taylor frequently lectures on the performance practices and preservation of the Negro Spiritual.
Dr. Taylor has traveled throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia as a singer and conductor, is former Assistant conductor of the Houston Symphony Chorus, serving under Charles Hausmann, and has prepared choruses and collaborated with renowned conductors and composers. For the Houston Ebony Opera Guild, she has coached and accompanied singers, and has conducted the Guild’ Chorus in concerts of spirituals, African American choral art music, and operatic works. Dr. Taylor has conducted the ”105 Voices of History” HBCU National Choir in performances at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and in Memphis for the performance on the nationally televised MLK50 Commemoration event presented by the National Civil Rights Museum.
Under Taylor’s direction, the Prairie View A&M University Concert Chorale and PV Chamber Singers have performed throughout the United States and abroad, including performances with the Houston Symphony Orchestra, international music festivals in Poland, Germany, and in South America. Taylor holds memberships in the Texas Music Educators Association, American Choral Directors Association, Texas Choral Directors Association, and Sigma Alpha Iota Music Fraternity or Women.